Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment

It is almost uncommon to go throughout a day in this world and not hear of daily

tragedies such as murder, homicide, and manslaughter. But what seems to be more of an

interest to society is the outcome of these circumstances. More in particular, the

punishment one would receive after committing such a crime. The death penalty. The end

consequence that you accept when you decide to pull a trigger or thrust a knife into and

kill someone. The death penalty has always been and continues to be a very controversial

issue in the criminal justice policy. Every election year, politicians wishing to win the

beliefs of voters, compete with each other as to who will be the toughest in extending the

death penalty to those violators who have been convicted of murder. Both proponents and

opponents of capital punishment present powerful arguments to support their claims.

Their arguments are made on different views of what is moral in society, such as religion,

the effect on society, and the possibility of being denied, or "wrongly accused". But how

often do these ideas come into the public's mind when they hear of our "fair" and

"trusted" government taking away someone's living rights? People on both sides of the

issue argue endlessly to gain further support for their ideas. Opponents of capital

punishment argue that it violates the prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments"

in the Eight Amendment to the Constitution and that the penalty is applied unequally.

But proponents also have their own persuasive ideas to further this punishment for

heinous crimes in demands for justice and strong retribution because a mere jail sentence

for a multiple murderer or rapist seems unjust compared with the damage inflicted on

society and the victims.

To start off, the definition of execution is putting an individual to death as a legal

penalty. Crimes that can result from this act can be both murder and homicide. The

earliest records of the death penalty can be found in the Code of Hammurabi, 1750 b.c. In

the United States, the first known use of the death penalty was in 1608 when Captain

George Kendell of Jamestown Colony in Virginia was accused of espionage for Spain.

By 1800, more than 200 capital punishments were recognized, and as a result 1000 or

more persons were sentenced every year since. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

The 1930's had some of the most executions, an average of 167 victims a year

possibly due the Great Depression and Prohibition. Prior to 1971, the death penalty was

officially allowed by about half of the states. Federal law also authorized the penalty, but

no one had actually suffered from it since 1967 because of the legal tangles and

challenges it brought to the Constitution. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court halted

executions in all states by striking the death penalty as unconstitutional in the Furman v.

Georgia ruling. The Court held that capital punishment violated the constitutional

prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" because it could be applied in a

discriminatory fashion. (Politics in America) Since then, a majority of states rewrote

their death penalty laws to try to ensure fairness and uniformity of application. So then in

1976, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty concluding that the punishment of

death does not invariably violate the Constitution and can be applied as a ligament

punishment for certain crimes such as rape, robbery, hijacking, kidnapping, murder with

torture and multiple murders. (Dye) Since then, the list has expanded and now includes

the murder of a law enforcement officer or firefighter who is on duty, murder committing

other major crimes, murder for hire, murder of a prison guard or employee, and murder of

a child younger than six.

Up until April 2001, the United States has put 716 criminals to death. Totaling in

all, 3,527 offenders were put to death as of December 31, 1999 and more that 13,000

since colonial times. In 2002, 57 criminals have been convicted and sentenced to the

punishment. Two of the most known death penalty cases were the Timothy McVeigh, 33,

for the Oklahoma City Bombing that left 168 dead and 500 injured and in the Ted Bundy